How to trace a sample from the outcrop to the lab result
A lab result is only useful on the right sample. How sample references, Excel imports and a list of unmatched rows tie assays back to the exact field point.
The lab report arrives as a spreadsheet. Row after row of sample codes, next to oxides and trace elements. Somewhere else are the geologist’s notes, with the same codes as they were written in the field. One sample was relabelled at camp. Another has a digit that could be a 1 or a 7. The person matching the two has to make a call, and usually nobody ever checks it.
If a result lands on the wrong sample, the map shows an anomaly in the wrong place, or hides a real one. Drilling decisions may then rest on a typing slip that nobody can trace any more.
Where the thread usually breaks
A sample changes hands on paper several times. It goes from the outcrop to the notebook, from the notebook to the list that goes to the lab, and from the lab’s file back into whatever holds the geology. Each step is a copy, and each copy can drift from the last.
Storage makes it worse. A lab report kept as a file in a Drive folder cannot answer a question. To see grades on a map, somebody has to join the report to the field points by hand, and that join usually lives in one person’s private spreadsheet.
The sample starts on the point
In FlexiMining, a sample is recorded on the exploration point, at the moment and in the place of the observation. The point already holds its position in GPS and Lambert, the rock type, the minerals with their concentration, and the photos. The sample reference links to the point code automatically, so no separate list has to be kept in step with the notes.
Drilling follows the same logic. Collars, surveys, rock logs and assays for every hole are attached to the permit. Inclined holes follow their true path underground, so every sample sits where it was actually taken.
The result comes back by import
Lab results come in from Excel. Each row is matched to the right sample through the point code or the sample reference. Major oxides in percent and trace elements in ppm go into structured columns, so the chemistry can be read alongside the point it came from, and the picture builds up in 3D as results accumulate.
Anything unmatched is listed. To me, this is the most useful line in the whole feature, because a row that fits nothing does not vanish or get attached by best guess. It goes on a list where a geologist can look at it and work out what happened.
The importer is tuned to the standard ICP report format. Other report layouts are configured lab by lab, and it would be wrong to promise that any file from any lab will simply drop in. If your lab’s report differs from the standard, test with a real one during a trial, including its awkward rows.
What the platform does not claim to do
Matching a result is not the same as checking it. Blanks, duplicates and reference standards inserted in a batch still need a geologist’s eye, and a row that matches cleanly can still be a bad assay.
The published features cover the sample’s record at the point and its result at the import. The shipping paperwork and the lab’s own custody records stay in your existing procedure. Findings, on the other hand, can be recorded in the platform and followed through to a decision with their history kept, so the conclusion drawn from an assay does not drift away from the assay itself.
